/lit/ - Literature

blindsight

>>9886926
>>What sff books you felt blatantly forced subtexts in their pages?
Witcher. Although it's kind of hard to call it subtext when blatantly forced. I still liked it

>What sff books you read failed miserably at disguising that the author had an agenda?
Sword of Truth is probably the biggest offender.

>What sff book snuck past ideologies onto you, and you didn't realize it until much, much later?
Only because I read them at a young age, but Wheel of Time in retrospect has an entirely different view of women in retrospect than I thought.

Ubik

>What sff books you felt blatantly forced subtexts in their pages?
Orwell
>What sff books you read failed miserably at disguising that the author had an agenda?
Orwell
>What sff book snuck past ideologies onto you, and you didn't realize it until much, much later?
Orwell

>>9886926
I want to read some Fredric Brown, whats his best stuff?

>>9886731
Its large in scale not unlike GoT.

Character and Deities motivations are pretty out in the open. The fantasy elements feel a bit disjointed though. Sort of just mashed together, no real sense of culture, like these countries don't really exist. Almost like it was a rogue like world map with random fantasy tropes abound.

I don't like the giant dragon fly mounts for one, they just seem like rule of cool. And their environment doest reflect their size.

>>9886954
I love Fredric Brown! That picture you attached is a pretty good one, my personal favorite is What Mad Universe. He also wrote this really nice mystery novel called Night of the Jabberwok

>>9886954
This

>>9886955
i have read that many series tend to decline in later books and how couldn't they. It seems imposible to me for an author to sustain the intrest in the series for 7 or more books . Does that happen to Malazan?

>>9886278
He's not wrong about the loli thing. The main villain basically takes the main character's pre-pubescent daughter under his wing, and spends so much time thinking about how she's like this other little girl he remembers fondly (the main character as a child), and other such things.

There's one scene where she's sitting in his lap using her magical senses to see his pain and offers to use her powers to cure him, and he tells her not to because he needs to protect her etc. etc, all but saying "I love you". It was uncomfortably erotic reading.

>>9886955
>Character and Deities motivations are pretty out in the open.
I sure as fuck didn't know what Shadowthrone and Cotillion's end game was until we more or less made it to the end game.
I think the books are more oriented towards society than culture. There are clear differences between Lether, Malazan, and the "uncivilized".
>>9886978
I wouldn't say so. Book 8 can drag a bit, as his writing was affected by the death of his father. Book 9 and 10 are basically one long book, and I can't say it felt like he ever lost interest in the series.

nah

What are some fantasy or scifi with /straight shotacon/ themes?

>>9886996
In Prince of Nothing young Xerius gets handys from his mom.

Is there a fantasy novel similar to Pynchon ?

>>9886926
>What sff book snuck past ideologies onto you, and you didn't realize it until much, much later?
Three Body Problem series. While reading it felt like it supported the views and actions of the character Thomas Wade (and Zhang Beihai) but only when discussing the series later did I realize that the point of view character who acted on >muh feels and spent the rest of the book dealing with the consequences did the right thing. And that Wade also realized this.

Also this >>9886950

>>9887001
Already on my list, but thanks.

>>9886926
Damn this looks like some quality dinosaur material. Anyone here read it?

https://www.loa.org/books/373-american-science-fiction-nine-classic-novels-of-the-1950s-boxed-set

What should I read after Cixin Liu?

They cost me around $20 ;^)
Already read the first one and it's great!

>>9887047
Lovely

>>9887053
Yeah. There are also illustrations inside.

>>9887030
Tried his short stories?

I moved onto Stross but it didn't really sit with me.

Is Neal Asher any good? I heard him recommended in the context of Banks fans.

Is hyperion worth the read ?

>>9887137
Only the first one.

When are we getting more incredibly tight pussies?

>>9887135
Try "shadow of the scorpion" and move on from there if you like it. Follow the Wikipedia reading order if you want to continue.

>>9887152
How is that series anyway?

>>9887162
It's enjoyable for what it is. The author just tried to impress some girl he wanted to fuck, and fucked up the entire vibe of the series because of it.

>>9887030
I'm going to write more about this when Count to Infinity comes out and I've read it, but the Count to the Eschaton series by John C. Wright has a lot of thematic parallels to TBP while being written from a wildly different point of view.

Warning that it's also a lot less focused and the author isn't particularly subtle with the subtext.

If there's something you particularly liked about Liu/TBP say what it is and maybe I can make a more specific innovation. I think Greg Egan might be the closest parallel among Western writers in general to Liu.

>>9887137
Only the first two

>>9887166
>The author just tried to impress some girl he wanted to fuck
Care to elaborate?

>>9887327
Some shitty disease where chicks have uber tight vaginas that clamp up and don't let benis in

>>9886955
>Character and Deities motivations are pretty out in the open
You are either lying or you have no clue what you're talking about. There's in fact very few characters with easily understood goals or motives until they are finally brought to fruition. Shadowthrone's motives are a complete mystery until book 10. The Adjunct too is a mysterious, inscrutable woman. And good fucking luck trying to figure out what Iskaral Pust is planning or what he actually believes, the guy is either insane or so very good at pretending he is insane that there's effectively no difference between the two.

>no real sense of culture, like these countries don't really exist
Did you only read one book or something? Cause Erikson does culture and society level world building than any author I've read. Nobody else really captures the scale on which these things happen.

It's here.

Can a Moorcockfag verify this?

>SNK is based on the book "The Eternal Champion", and the characters seem to have references to characters in the book in this way:

>Erekose (Protagonist) = Eren (They both swore "kill them all", and they are gonna die soon for a curse, they want be normal guys)

>Iolinda (Human princess) = Mikasa (They are both very jealous and both accuse the protagonist of sympathizing with the enemy, remember Annie)

>Ermizhad (Eldren princess... yeah her race is called Eldren and The Eternal Lover) = Historia (They are both blondes and have blue eyes, both had a sibling who had the key to unlock the ancient power of the Eldren people, remember Frieda)

>Erekose reincarnates to be the savior of mankind and has dreams in which he can see his past and future lives (as the user of the coordinate can see his previous and future users). In addition he is stuck in a battle between two sides, humanity and the Eldren.
The Eldren have an old power that almost destroyed the world and its ruler has decided not to use it even if that means the extinction of its species -the 145th king-

>He is destined to commit genocide of some kind, and at some point says "I swear I would kill them all"

>Erekose sounds like Eren
>Erekose loves Ermizhad, an Eldren princess who is described as a blond woman with blue eyes.
>John Daker/Erekose carries the burden of remembering every incarnation he has ever had/ the coordinate.
>Prince Arjavh is a stand in for both the 145th king and Armin

The sunken cost fallacy is almost getting me.

Recommend me some shorter weird work so I won't continue Malazan

>>9887807
Second Apocalypse.

>>9103436
>There's a scifi story about an alien race that doesn't sleep, and then they meet earthlings and this is basically their thought process. Would like to know the name if anyone recognizes it.
Figured one of you guys might know this.

>>9887215
>I think Greg Egan might be the closest parallel among Western writers in general to Liu.
Except Greg Egan's work actually makes conceptual sense :^)
Not that I didn't enjoy TBP, but I would like to know of other writers with such depth and scope as Egan.

>>9887824
>>>9103436
messed up the quote

>>9887838
>>9887824
The threads deleted fampai

>>9887824
>>9887842
Nah I'm an idiot who forgot how to crossquote
>>>/sci/9103436

>>9887703
Read the synopsis. Seems cool but also seems like it could be really shitty given the cover art, the fact that it's a nobody publishing house and the fact that there's two authors.

Is the series any good? I mean actually good, not just a cool universe, I mean good prose and characters and a story that doesn't make me want to vomit.

>>9887846
Not the story you're looking for, but Exhalation by Ted Chiang might interest you.

Does anyone have some nice fantasy with a little girl protag?

>>9887870
The Broken Earth series has little girls as prominent POV characters.

>>9887761
Who would read more than 6-8 of his books anyway? I doubt anyone will be able to respond tbhq

thoughts on clive barker? I like the hellraiser film and thinking of checking him out

>>9887941
Books with good plots but shit everything else are very good at being made into movies because the director and the acting add what's misssing, but they make for shit reads. Like Stephen King.

>>9887851
>the fact that it's a nobody publishing house
Yes because as all know publishers like Tor produce nothing but top quality books said no one ever.

>>9887867
Sounds interesting, thanks.
There should be more science fiction from the perspective of aliens, without any human involvement at all.

>>9888153
I agree but unless you anthropomorphise it's hard to follow. And excessive anthromorphisation just creates a cast of normal humans

>>9887024
No, but now I want it. Looks like exquisite dinocore science fiction.

>tfw the one-and-done epic fantasy is a lost art and now everything has to be stretched to 500 books

>>9888477
The bloat really is annoying.

>>9888477
Books in series sell more. The free market strikes again.

I don't like reading tragic things. Should I read Malazan?

>>9888477
It's much cooler and more satisfying to be able to immerse yourself in a world for 10k+ pages than for just 1k or so.
That being said, getting through 10 books can be a bit tedious and difficult at times if you're not a NEET.

>>9888663
No, particularly not book 2, 7, and 8, but no character is safe in the Malazan world, and every book is loaded with tragedy.

>>9888675
Thanks.

>>9888671
>It's much cooler and more satisfying to be able to immerse yourself in a world for 10k+ pages than for just 1k or so.

I think that's a dubious claim at best.

I just remembered something. In one of the later Malazan books, Aranict, Brys' atri-ceda and slam piece (I think) meets Quick Ben, and thinks "maybe the 'quick' in his name doesn't refer to his quick wits, but his Quixotic nature"

This tells us two things. One: that Erikson pronounces it "quicks-ote".

Two: Don Quixote is a book in the Letheri Empire.

>>9888675
>>9888743
How long did finishing the entire series take you?

>>9888743
>Epic fantasy
>Someone says "For Pete's sale!"

>>9888756
I think I started around the beginning of May, or the end of April, and just finished a week or two ago. Couldn't read much in June though.

>>9888743

I mostly hear "Key-hoe-tay" and "Quick-sotic", including from the same people.

It is very annoying trying to decide how many words with etymological roots in real-world-exclusive concepts one should avoid in a fantasy setting, though. The most egregious can easily be avoided, but at a certain point the vocabulary becomes too limited unless you start inventing replacements and that almost never ends well.

>>9888766
or just don't have characters say "jesus fucking christ" and shit like that
no need to go overboard and end up with twenty 2 or 3 letter words

>>9888757
>idioms can't be translated

>>9888775

I don't mean going that far, but for example trying to write a not-renaissance diary and getting carried away with etymonline and ruling out words and terms that originated either from a super-specific literary source, like Quixotic, or that didn't enter use until after the 17th century.

Maybe I'm just autistic...

>>9888762
That's pretty fast. Impressive.
I started at the beginning of June and I'm not even halfway through the third book because I slagged off and kept playing vidya and doing other shit instead of reading.
It's got me a bit worried, especially since uni is soon going to start again.

Does anyone have the "Knife of many hands" by R scott Bakker? Someone shared it a while ago...
It's from some magazine, can't find it anywhere

>>9888743
It's a localization. A translation of a concept from another language/culture/world into something familiar to our world.

Are there some fantasy novels with complex lore and lots of red herrings that give an illusion of near infinite depths? I like stories that I can't wrap my head fully around, like I'm trying to tie a knot that requires 3 hands.
Not something that has a nonsensical plot necessarily, but just something that let's you have more questions than answers every time you analyze it. This can both be trash and good, I'd like something that does it well.

>>9888756
I spent a few years. Slow reader, usually just for 20 minutes before sleep and not even every night. Studies and other stuff take most of my time, and I don't consider reading to be something I'd do outside of bedtime or travels.
>>9888743
Don't remember that at all and I finished the series some months ago...

>>9888984
The first three or four Dark Tower books were like that. The last four were quite literally the polar opposite. Never seen a series go from great to shit so quick. You can tell exactly when King got off the coke.

>>9888984
Name of The Wind.

>>9888984
Some species in the Malazan world are a few hundred thousand years old, and we occasionally get POVs quite a long way back in time, but the main series' events occur over perhaps 10 years. It does contain a lot references to past events, long-gone civilizations, etc.
The Kharkanas trilogy is set some tens of thousands of years before the main series.

>>9888989
Its in Dust of Dreams.

>"Since then, she'd heard plenty of curses from Ben Adaephon Delat, and had come to conclude that his quickness was less corcerous than quixotic."

>>9888984
BotNS
LOTR

>>9887807
Perditto Street Station and Embassy Town by China Mieville.

>>9888984
Book of the New Sun

At this point, I'm pretty sure the book changes itself retroactively to fit every request posted in /sffg/.

>>9889082
have you ever considered that this gen is mostly filled with BOTNS fans and that people request things with similar aspects for that reason?

>>9889096
I'm on a quest to make these jokers to read other shit.

>tfw been here since almost the beginning and still haven't read BOTNS

>rereading Homer's Odyssey to prop up my Greek lore

Did any science fiction writer ever use this as a basis for their own work, not just referencing but having extended analogies to it, e.g. a protag on a journey home, cyclops (some interesting anthropology at this part, they're anarchists/utopians), lotus eaters (drugs, soma and mass media?) etc etc. It's obviously ripe for cribbing and allusion, but I wanted to know if somebody has transposed the basic story to a space opera, or written something with an Odysseus-like figure.

I'd also like recommendations for greekaboo fantasy lit outside of Gene Wolfe.

>>9889354
When the next book comes out, the series beginning with Too Like the Lightning

>>9889357
>Expected publication: December 5th 2017

is dune the greatest sci-fi book of all time?

>>9889409
No_

>>9889409
It wasn't written by the blessed walrus, so no.

>>9889423
>>9889436
name one (1) book better than Dune

>>9889449
Botns
Hyperion
Foundation

>>9888477
This sucks so hard. First it happened to my Chinese picture-books but now even real books drag on forever for the sake of indefinite sales to neckbeards and autists who think that size=substance (looking at you, Malazan-shitters and Sanderson-fags).

>>9888671
>muh immersion
Fuck you, literature is art, not therapy for escaping from your shit life.

>>9889461
>Botns
>Hyperion
>Foundation

I'm actually going to read these just to prove you wrong in my mind

>>9889449
Downbelow Station
Foundation
Emphyrio

>>9889291
why? I can't imagine you're busy

>>9889529
Still missing Claw.

>>9889522
>sffg general
>literature
pick one

>>9889535
>buying books
Wolfeman had a real job, he doesn't need your money.

>>9889553
Which board are we on?

>>9889568
I like physical books.

>>9889568
Wolfe's works deserve dead trees.

>>9889535
I read the first two and I've had the second wo sitting next to me on my desk for over a year. I still feel absolutely no desire to continue. It was interesting, and I guess technically better than most other shit, but it just never clicked for me. Id's literally rather read Naruto fanfiction.

>>9889461
Foundation is definitely not better than Dune.

>>9889683
>get a load of this faggot

>>9888663
I was pleased by the ending, I did not interpret it as being tragic.

So I'm about halfway through this and it's pretty good so far. Expected generic fantasy story, got stuff about forensic accounting and fiat money instead.

>>9889096
Let me have my fun.
Also, that giantess request from the other day was pretty out of left field.

>>9888999
Checked

The series is great but Rothfuss is being a douche soaking up fame and inventing board games nobody will ever play instead of finishing his trilogy.

>>9889354
ODY-C if you're willing to try comics.

>>9889354
David Drake did that with Cross The Stars. Basically a character from the Hammer's Slammers heading home to his family.

He's also used Greek/Roman stuff as basis for other stories. Voyage is essentially Jason and the Argonauts, while Counting the Cost is a retelling of the Nika riots, and The Warrior uses the story of Achilles to frame the difference between warriors and professional soldiers. To quote a intro in one of the collections I own:
>Reduced perhaps to oversimplification, [Slick] Des Grieux is a warrior and Broglie is a soldier; Broglie is sane and Slick is not. They hate each other immediately. [...] This is the story of the madness of Achilles.

>>9889717
Dagger and Coin and Traitor are the only accounting fantasy books I've come across.

>>9889831
That and the Moist von Lipwig Discworld books touch on economy in direct/oblique ways, shame Prachett was never able to write the one where Moist gets put in charge of taxes and becomes the most hated man in Ankh Morpork.

Dagger and Coin I found to be heavily weighed down by all the stuff trying to humanize the evil, depressed fat guy with the leather cloak. I read up to the second book last year and I'm still trying to decide if the third will be worth the trouble.

>>9889383
hey i gotta wait until then too buddy
the rest of the series has a lot of classical references too

>>9889636
Wolfe's works deserve handwritten reproductions produced by monks on the skins of giant man-eating wolves.

>>9889683
unless you actually enjoy those meanderingly dull chapters about the desert cunts pissing around with ~"not-magic" then dune offers nothing over Foundation (by this I mean the trilogy, but you can argue the first 3 Dunes if you like), except perhaps a little style

>>9889383
>>9889357
>The Will to Battle
>Overdrive availability (1)
Just cuck my shit up. Better hope that the person who requested this is number 1 on the queue or we could be waiting longer than 1 day for this book to drop. Then again, the release date is still months away so some of the libraries could have missed the memo.

>>9889717
yeah I really liked it a lot , stuck with me.
I read a like a year and a half ago but if I think about it I'm right back in that world.

>>9888477
> >tfw the one-and-done epic fantasy is a lost art and now everything has to be stretched to 500 books

>>9889999
there will be a sequel

Any UK fags want a free copy of Seven Surrenders?

Accidentally ordered two. No way to make you trust me but ho-hum

>>9889999
>>9890057
There's a sequel basically guaranteed.

>>9890057
>>9890074
But you can read it as standalone book.

>>9890080
>But you can read it as standalone book
Delete this immediately, holy shit.

What's the best site to "acquire" ebooks?

>>9890104
http://forum.mobilism.org/index.php

>>9890110
thank

>>9890104

Is there a massive torrent out there with all the /sffg/ classics?

>>9890150
Unfortunately not and we can't even agree on what books are universally good

>>9890186
>universally good
Well I wouldn't bother going that far, maybe the top most influential? I would be shocked if LOTR or Neuromancer were not part of it.

>>9890074
In fact he just sent off the manuscript for The Monster Baru Cormorant to his editor. Around 1000 pages right now apparently.

>>9888984
Second Apocalypse

>>9889522
>Fuck you, literature is art, not therapy for escaping from your shit life.
Is immersion not vital for catharsis?

>>9890200
Cannot come out soon enough.

>>9887024
That's some top-tier cover art.

>>9890287
> top-tier cover art

Im about 100 pages into the name of the wind and I already don't like Kvothe. Should I continue?

>>9890365
No the second book is god damn terrible, not even worth reading.

>>9890313
So you guys were discussing this series a while back, have you come to a decision of whether Luna is worth reading?

>>9890365
Didn't people tell you not to read it?

>>9890365
i hated him too and dropped the book.

>>9890365
It's obvious at this point that Rothfuss will never finish that meme series anyway.

>>9890365
You were warned, it only gets worse.

>>9888816
Seconding this request.

>Next Lightbringer 2019
can't come soon enough

>>9890448
august 2018

Where do I get started with terry pratchett?
I usually don't read long series so what would be a good book that represents his wider work?
Never read anything of his before though I'm not new to fantasy.

>>9890470

>>9890470
>Reading anything by a guy who's name is Terry

>>9890515
Thanks, I'll start with The colour of magic then.

>>9888816
>>9890447
Trying again Who has the story?

>>9890516
Terry Goodkind did nothing wrong.

>>9887807
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Any book set in the Discworld, you could even pick with a random number generator if you exclude the few young-adult books.
>>9890470 This is basically the way I was initiated.


>>9890372
I think it is. Despite me not really buying into the reasoning behind the scarcity of firearms in moon society.

>>9889930
>Dagger and Coin
Finished 3rd book 2-3 weeks earlier, didn't even tried to read 4 and 5...
Fat fuck "evil" character is typical /pol/ + /r9k/ autist.
I was waiting for some character growth. But instead author made him more autistic and one sided.
"Spider priests did nothing wrong" is his motto from the start to finish.

Read this last week. Reminded me of The Diamond Age in a lot of ways, but I was ultimately unsatisfied because I was more interested in the setting ("half-assed Singularity") than the plot, and Gibson spends hardly any time showing you the society. The central plot device is actually a form of time travel which Gibson openly acknowledges was inspired by the intentionally goofy short story Mozart in Mirrorshades. The conceit just took up too much time that could have been used for something more interesting and plausible.

The ending was obviously rushed and unsatisfying, although it wasn't Stephenson-tier.

On the whole, I actually preferred the Pattern Recognition/Blue Ant books.

I also read this and liked it, and I'd recommend it (and Three Body Problem) to anyone in the thread. The translator, Martinson, struck me as better than Ken Liu, who often seemed to pick awkward synonyms or use clumsy sentence structure in TBP. I will quibble that he used inappropriate translations for the ranks of naval ranks, e.g. styling officers one rank below flag level "Colonels" unless it was obvious they were in command of a vessel, not to mention referring to naval flag officers as "General".

The characters were interesting. The incredibly positive portrayal of the commissar Zhang Beihai was both something you wouldn't see in a Western work, and frankly felt like a sort of compensation for Liu's negative portrayal of Chinese Communism in TBP.

Luo Ji felt like a more-competently-executed anime/isekai/light novel protagonist. An apathetic slacker who's accidentally afforded a super power and has The Perfect Waifu fall into his lap. Still, although this type of character is one of my grievances against popular Asian literature Liu sets himself apart and keeps Luo Ji from falling into pure cliche.

>>9891022
>Luo Ji
I really disliked that lazy fuck in the beginning but he really grow on you as a character once he gets his sorry thumb out of his ass.

>compensation for Liu's negative portrayal of Chinese Communism
What did you even mean by this?

>>9891022
>>9891050
Also, important question and some minor criticism.

Was his waifu a UN agent with the sole mission of getting him to love her, birth a child and then use herself and the child as leverage to get him to work?

Isn't it kinda unlikely that literally no one else figured out about the dark forest concept? Or did people but only he had the power to test his theory? Also, that Trisolaris and the ETO did not manage to kill him feels a little unlikely but I guess he was lucky.

>Age of War
>Expected publication: June 30th 2018

Heh

>>9891022
I hated MMO shit in TBP.
I understand that from Chinese perspective where government controls standard channels of communication, text and voice chats in MMO is great alternative for extremist, 5th column and anti-government groups. But author gone too far with this plot line.

>>9891050
>What did you even mean by this?
You did notice that about a third of TBP consisted of someone literally selling out humanity because they were so fucked over by the Cultural Revolution they wanted to burn everything to the ground, right?

>>9891072
There's no question that she was a UN agent, the only real question is whether she was a completely cynical operative or a recruit who truly loved him. My bet is on the latter.

>>9891086
I thought the MMO aspect was great, actually, especially how TBP described in detail how it was used to identify/indoctrinate sympathizers. More prosaically, like you said, I think in-game chats may be/have been used for that purpose in China as well.

>>9891116
>You did notice that about a third of TBP consisted of someone literally selling out humanity because they were so fucked over by the Cultural Revolution they wanted to burn everything to the ground, right?
Yeah, I noticed. But I don't understand why you feel like there was some need for compensation, I found her actions perfectly believable.

>>9891116
>There's no question that she was a UN agent
Of course there is. Among all the women in China it's not that unlikely that there's a perfect waifu. But I mostly agree with your view, she may not have truly loved him but like the reader I think she saw and liked the Wallfacer he had potential to become.

>>9891022
I still haven't fully read the books. I read few a few pages of the first book, felt like I was getting a very pointedly political opinion dictated to me and closed it. I think, to be absolutely frank, that most published Chinese authors are probably the eastern equivalent of SJWs. It's probably more interesting if you haven't been constantly raised on whingy tales of why the communist government sucked day in day out. I know it's corrupt, but I don't feel like reading an entire novel about it. Just give me the aliens.

Conversely, when people complain about /sffg/ authors having political opinions I rarely even notice the presence of their opinions in their books and it never bores me.

Someday I am going to have to pick those books up again (because I'm still piqued by the plot) but today is not one of those days.

Currently reading Vance's Demon Princes and PKD's Stigmata book and so far they are very good but oddly enough Vance's prose seems to have lost weight and PKD's seemed to have gained substance, almost like they swapped places.

>>9890843
Thanks anon, I'm still short of good books to read, so I'll chuck it on the eternal TBR.

>>9890975
I still haven't read any of Gibson's stuff except for the Sprawl Trilogy. Which reminds me, I should definitely get to those.

>>9891050
>What did you even mean by this?
>>9891116

TBP is pretty great book if you look at it as political critique and example of extreme-left pathological behavior.

They love to focus on negative parts of humanity and human history.
And it can go so far that they will beg outside forces to replace native population. Look at current situation in Europe with mass immigration and left's reaction.
It gone so far that in US some "educated" elites hate "Western Civilization" and blame white people for everything. With constant "White man must die for good of humanity and progress".

It was a great critique of bad parts of marxism, specifically post-modernism. Equity = god, if everything is equal, then there is no difference between good and bad, no difference between humans and Trisolarians.

>>9891159
Fuck typoes

>>9891170
>It gone so far that in US some "educated" elites hate "Western Civilization" and blame white people for everything. With constant "White man must die for good of humanity and progress".
Is that marxism or is it (((something else)))?

>>9891170
Your analogy kinda fall flat, you compare Ye Wenjie and the horrors she experienced during the cultural revolution to western leftists who have not suffered any major horrors at all. Of course many of the later ETO members have not suffered the cultural revolution but we do not get to explore their reasoning, the only one we really get to know is Ye and she have every reason to be disillusioned with humanity. And in the end she even save humanity by indirectly telling Luo Ji about the dark forest.

>>9891157
The reason I think there was a "need for compensation" is that criticizing government policies, even the Cultural Revolution, is typically forbidden by government censors. For TBP to say what it did in a mainstream publication was no small matter. The acceptable line in China has, very slowly, come around to allowing people to say, not too loudly, that "mistakes were made" in the past while emphasizing that the present is the best thing that's every happened for the Chinese. That second part is where Zhang Beihai comes in.

>>9891159
The Cultural Revolution and associated policies under Mao are some of the worst examples of misgovernment/atrocity in history. No offense, but you're completely ignorant if you think that negative portrayals of them amount to "whingy tales".

>>9891170
I see where you're going but I don't think it works. Ye Wenjie lost her family to state-sponsored violence and was enslaved, and eventually thought humanity had no right to exist, at all. Western leftists just want to crush people they hate and get more power.

>>9891216
Well, from my perspective main difference is that in China cultural revolution was a violent and fast change. In the West it's the gradual progress towards the same goals and same pathological behavior. Look into Evergreen College situation.

>>9891226
Oh, you meant compensation towards the Chinese government? That's a reasonable assumption but I also feel like it's in line with the books general optimistic view on future china and the world in general.

>>9891159
The prose and plotting of Demon Princes is definitely tauter, less baroque and loquacious than his Dying Earth and some other of his books. So the prose is a deliberate change. They're almost like mid 20thC spy and detective novels but with the imagery/icons of space opera. I think they're understated and wry books; imagine what the same plot would be like in the hands Robert Heinlein, the morality would be more sentimental and Kirth Gersen would be like a boy scout, and the villains would be caricatures. The antagonists in Demon Princes are very clever and multi-layered figures. I think those books are all about the villains.

>>9891226
Mao being a retard is self evident, but the communist government isn't even communist, it's just a bunch of fucktards squandering money rather than spending it on the people and then running of with it. To make it seem like anything more than that sounds like an embellishment. The Nazis, Russian Revolution, French Revolution and even Donald Trump seems way more interesting than a lecture on why Mao shouldn't be allowed to fellate to his own ingenuity - alien edition! As well as the oh, I think the communist gvt is bad, but not too bad because it might trigger someone, would be a very boring topic to write around.

I kinda miss those days when I could read books as shit as the Night Angel Trilogy and love it, I've become so cynical I hate it.

>>9891380
*off

>>9891380
*
I'm still going to read it, though, because the setting doesn't make the books but the characters. Although I do read much less alt historicals than pure speculative

Somebody read Draconis Memoria?
After Queen of Fire fiasco by Anthony Ryan i'm not sure if i want to waste my time on another shit book.

What did you guys think about the new GoT episode?

>>9891529
>>>/tv/

>>9889930
If you do read the next book, there's a couple of scenes/chapters of his that will make you cringe into the next dimension. Imagine some of the worst "nice guy" cringey greentext stories you've ever read, it's pretty close.

Finished reading Broken Empire trilogy. Liked the idea of the protagonist, but I felt that he got too nice in the second book (although the first book seemed edgy purely for the sake of being edgy.) Can someone recommend me sff books with a sociopathic protagonist.

>>9891529
I love that they've added teleportation this season to speed up the plot

>>9891529
Got GoT withdrawals as soon as it ended.

>>9891529
I liked it a lot honestly, this season so far has been the best since like the third or so. Don't really care that they didn't extend it to like 10 seasons and did repetitive travelogues instead of advancing the plot.

>>9891529
>not waiting until the end of the season to binge it in one sitting

>winds of winter will be released spring 2018 AT THE EARLIEST
when will that fat old neckbeard stop lying about publication dates to his fans?

>>9889947
I enjoyed every second of Dune, from top to bottom.

I'm going to read these supposed contenders this thread has brought forth, but like I say, I loved every second of Dune... so any of these dethroning it would only be quite pleasant.

>reading book
>it's toma from magical no index

>>9891022
Can't seem to find this novel via my usual e-outlets. I really enjoyed the first.

Where can I find it

>>9889947
why would you, every dune gets worst than the last
the best part of the first one was desert cunts pissing around with not-magic

>>9891418
It's Ryan copying Brandon Sanderson's student's (Black powder junkies) work and making dragon blood junkies.

>>9891917
http://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=1293&t=1487575

>>9889999
http://www.sethdickinson.com/2015/11/24/the-secret-design-of-the-traitor-baru-cormorant/
>people have different opinions than me because of brainwashing
>im gonna write a book to brainwash people into agreeing with my beliefs
lol

I re-read Lovecraft's The Festival (1923), one of those short stories where the full meaning of previous word choices and foreshadowing become clear after the final paragraph; for one, the reason the yuletide celebrants of the provincial town leave no footprints as the protagonist wanders with them to subterranean depths. On re-reading it's also satisfying to catch the tentative elements of his wider mythos and appreciate the foreboding scene building.

jemisin's the stone sky is on mobilism

>>9891896
>I find that if I know exactly where a book is going, I lose all interest in writing it.

>>9892111
>Stone sky comes out before doors of stone

>>9891896
Does it really matter? A Dream of Spring will literally never be released.

>>9892247
>a whole trilogy comes out between doors of stone and wise man's fear
>and it's better than patty's self insert lute player turbo lover superwizard

Any recommendations for some lighthearted adventures?

>>9892445
You might want to be more specific or just follow charts in OP.

>>9892445
The Hobbit

>>9891543
>>9890945
Yowza, thanks the the warnings.

>>9892445
The Elfin Ship by James Blaylock

>>9892445
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories are exactly that. Read them in the order they were originally published.

>>9892481
how is that lighthearted? the heroes often almost die, and several people DO die.

>>9892111
Holy shit it's already out

>>9892550
Yeah but it's not an atmosphere of doom and gloom.

>>9892535
I second this.

It will make you miss your best friend.

Is there any good surrealist science fiction?

>>9892683
Son of Man by Robert Silverberg. Modern man gets transported to the far future where many radically different species of humans exist at the same time, sex and other characteristics can change at or against your will, and massive regions of the planet have been fundamentally altered to embody concepts like slowness, oldness and darkness. It's written in a floaty, dreamlike style.

>>9892683
Dhalgren, although I personally think it sucks.

>>9892049
He failed in his purpose then, the book to me shows how colonialism and empire are good things.
Inferior people are to be subjected and killed too fulfill personal ambition.

>>9886926
Is this good?
I'm just looking for a good mixture of sci-fi and action

Having trouble picking a new book, even w/ the flowchart. Recently, I've read:
>Dune
>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
>Mistborn series
>Kingkiller Chronicles
>Gardens of the Moon
>Witcher series
>

I'm trying to decide between:
>The Way of Kings
>Neuromancer
>Forever War
>Star Maker
>The Dark Tower

Open to other suggestions as well

>>9892956
Forever War is okay. I'd stay away from the dork tower if I were you, it's an awful series.

>>9892956
S T A R M A K E R
I reread Star Maker yearly and it gets better every time.

>>9892049
Dickinson is an active poster on SA. Are you really surprised at this?

>>9892966
I've heard both good and bad things. Honestly, I enjoy most books I've read, so even books /lit/ considers bad I could probably enjoy.

>>9892988
I think I've narrowed it down to Star Maker, The Way of Kings, and Neuromancer

>>9892049
>Google Seth "literally who" Dickinson
>young woman
>imperial power that subjugated her homeland
>subvert the empire from within
>ambitious worldbuilding

>>9893013
If you choose Star Maker, don't get discouraged by the first two chapters. They aren't bad, but they're a little slow moving, 2 especially. Chapter 3 is where the "meat" of the book starts.

>>9893038
Do I need to read Last and First Men before I start on Star Maker?

>>9893026
Baru is essentially the /u/ version of Char Aznable.

>>9893051
No. They're thematically related and technically "canon" to each other, but they don't effect each other's events at all. There's literally something like one single paragraph in SM that references LaFM.

I do recommend it, but LaFM is more dated than SM is.

Camus - The Stranger
Ray Bradbury, aka, TV is EVIL!!! guy

Which is the most essential sci fi book about war?

>>9893200
>essential
Starship Troopers.

>>9893213
Alright, thanks my dude

>>9892890
Yes, it's very pulp.

>>9886926
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK KEKFUFKCKCKUCKUFKUFKUFKUCKUCUK

>>9891529
I haven't watched the last couple, it's so shit. I probably will eventually but holy hell those two writers truly are hacks among hacks. I always thought '25th Hour' was kind of shit but Game of Thrones is proof that the only reason those two clowns aren't cleaning toilets is because their families have 'fuck you' money.

>>9892683
'A Voyage to Arcturus' might be what you're after. Harold Bloom discerned incredible amounts of talent in David Lindsay.

>>9893200
'The Forever War' is also quite good. It's anti-war but written by somebody who actually fought in one so it doesn't feel petty or whiny.

>>9892049
>didactic
>conforms to prevailing mythology

oh boy

>>9893316
2nding Voyage to Arcturus. Book is a trip.

>>9892049
>>9893356
Dickinson is Orwell 2.0. Good plot but nothing unique.

>>9893398
(cont)
And also Orwell is more poetic and the middling bits are more evenly written.

>>9891915
Elaborate

>>9891915
>read The Stone Sky
>Schaffa and Nassun are as cute as Accelerator and Last Order

How are beserkers usually portrayed? Are they a race, a class with an ability?

>>9893410
What this anon said!

>>9893462
>tfw I thought for a minute that I was in the Fate/Apocrypha threads

>>9892111
>>9892572
>tfw can't meme with the best of them because I have 10+ books to read

>>9893468
I would have loved that show, say, like 4 years ago. Now not even Astolfo can save it

>>9893499
Astolfo a best.

>>9892862
>Dhalgren
>>9890945
>recommending Abraham

Is Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser any similar to The Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga? I heard they were inspired by the Dying Earth series, so I'm curious about it.

>>9893410
>>9893465
Did you even read the books? Wnat does Sigroot and "Breaker" have in common? Only problem is that it's on opposite sides between the two of them.

>>9893410
>>9893465
Sigrud's hand was possessed by a rogue miracle that cancels out divine effects the entire time.

>>9893506
Why should one avoid some of the /sffg/ books that aren't shit?

>>9893517
They're fun adventure stories and travelogues about two friends who wander up and down the land, looking for treasure, checking out mysterious lands, and using teamwork to get out of scrapes. They share Cugel's self interest and lack of morality, but there's a wholesome thread about the power of friendship running through it. It's like a buddy movie in a fantasy setting, with lots of sword fights. camaraderie, and what the Irish probably call 'the craic.'

What's a book-fantasy setting with as much occultic depth as Tamriel?

>>9893312
benioff's city of thieves is great

>>9893686
dragonlance or forgotten realms?

>>9893696
I just looked them both up and they seem to have quite prestigious credentials. Either they used family money and influence to get through (entirely possible as they were both rich as fuck before they ever started writing) or it's possible for somebody with a masters in fine arts and philosophy who wrote a competent thesis on Finnegans Wake to write 'BAD POOSIE' and think that there's nothing wrong with it.

>>9889069
listening to Embassy Town during my morning commutes recently. Definitely reccomend this! But I'd probably put the City & the City above it.

>>9893506
Ignore joke lists

>>9893517
They are my favorite fantasy characters, and the writter has a great vibey writing style. A good bit self aware but not beating over your head like pratchet. Adventures both funny and mystical.

If your into audiobooks, it's one of the few sets I would recommend beyond the books. The reader is fucking amazing and the theme is fucking GOAT.

>>9893702
The bad thing about forgotten realms is that it's mostly rule of cool bloat.

>>9893686
>all tamrielic religions begin the same
except, you know, the right one.

Any GOOD insect themed fantasy?

>>9894209
why are you asking for that? are you some kinda creepy bug person?

>>9894209
Go back to bed Gregor

>>9892956
Neuromancer is a quite fast and enjoyable read.

>>9893013
The setting/world for The Dark Tower is great, but honestly their shitty books that progressively get shittier. If you're interested in reading about GOOD gun-slinging apocalyptic novels then you should check out David Gemmell's Jerusalem Man series. Pretty obscure, but it doesn't disappear up its own ass like the Dark Tower does so the story is a lot tighter and actually has a satisfying ending.

I just finished Red Rising trilogy, first time visiting /lit/, what is your opinion of it? I liked it alot. Started reading Malazan book of the fallen now.
Am I a pleb for mostly listening audiobooks? I just enjoy playing some Path of Exile/other mindless games while listening to audiobooks.

>>9894479
Red Rising is absolute trash but most people here seem to like it

>>9894479
Absolutely fucking hated it but there is a dedicated number of anons here who love it.

>>9889717
Update, finished it this evening since I typically do about 60 pages/hour with fiction. Damn what an ending. I kinda expected the twist but not THE TWIST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbwrK62nvEw

>>9894569
Now you know why I fucking love this book.

>>9894479
Same, grinding maps + listening to audiobooks is great.
Red rising is pretty fun if you look at it as summer action packed hollywood blockbuster. Not much depth or ideas.
But with Malazan, you will skip various details if you don't focus on reading exclusively. It's a different beast. I've tried to start a reread of Malazan while playing, pretty bad, lost half of what was happening in first book.

>>9889717
>>9894569
>>9894578

Now I want to read it.
I couldn't find any audiobook torrents. Can anybody help me out?

>>9894814
You should really get a myanonamouse account because it's on there. I can't download it and reupload it unless I decide to kill my australian internet for 3 hours.

>>9891380
>No True Communism meme
But you're half correct, since China being halfway successful in the modern day is evidence that they've failed at communism.

>>9892996
SA still has active posters?

>>9893686
>What's a book-fantasy setting with as much occultic depth as Tamriel?
You mean you want a setting that had one good entry then turned into a generic LOTR ripoff and shunted all its depth to two spergs writing fanfiction for a franchise they're no longer part of?

>>9894446
>The setting/world for The Dark Tower is great, but honestly their shitty books that progressively get shittie
The Gunslinger is a legitimately great book.

When does city of stairs get good

>>9894974
Yeah I kind of dropped that book, it never delivered for me.

>>9893686
>Elder Scrolls
>Depth
What. Plus half of their lore is copypasted directly from CAS and Camp.

>>9894974
It doesn't, It's a by the numbers Sanderson-clone with intersectional feminism thrown in to dilute the narrative even further.

>>9894974
page 1

>age of swords
of fucking course the female would be the keenig (ruler of all the clans)

And of course the greatest wizard, artist, whatever would be a little girl

Fucking Sullivan, fuck you

>>9895117
>And of course the greatest wizard, artist, whatever would be a little girl
But does the loli behave cutely? That is the question

>>9895121
She lost her wolf
She also shakes a lot

>>9895126
She also acts like a little girl, very cute like

>>9895135
>>9895126
Awesome, thanks anon.

>>9895136
Be ware, the entire new series is WOMAN POWER, all the "smart" "strong" "clever" "wise", etc.. are females.
Males get btfo at every opportunity because they are stupid and pride and shit like that

>>9895117
>And of course the greatest wizard, artist, whatever would be a little girl
LITERALLY nothing wrong with this.

>>9895169
Fuck off Michael your series are shit

>>9895141
That's literally the least of your worries if your reading anything by Sullivan.

>>9895179
Well come on, Riyra or however it's spelled was awesome.
This new serious is TRASH

>>9895169
>>9895141
I watch way too much fucking anime, man. I was watching what started out as a hard scifi anime and 1 episode before the end the stronkest male character got blown the fuck out by a human-alien hybrid loli girl introduced in that episode apparently raised in an accelerated time bubble bullshit and was dressed as a japanese school girl. Then there's another anime this season where three male historical figures have been turned into girls and another male character is dressed in a skimpy dress and looks exactly like a girl and has pink hair. I don't think I would bat an eye if a little girl turned out to be god.

How's Stone Sky lads?

>>9895201
?

Okay, this is an odd request but here it goes. The other night I watched Dagon, a pretty cool film based on Lovecraft's work. Here's the thing, the film features a fishfu that stirred emotions in me I didn't know I had and now I'm wondering if there's anything /sffg/ that features an extensive romance between a man and a monstrous girl. I'd prefer not to have to write a novel about this myself in order to scratch this itch. Please help me, /sffg/, you're my only hope.

>>9894209
Empire of gold and black

>>9894479

>>9895258
Heinlein infamously wrote something about a romance between a man and a giant crustacean alien thing under a penname but I can't remember the title or penname.

>tfw no Deep One gf

>>9895258
There is C.L. Moore's Shambleau, a pulp classic. A space smuggler on Mars meets beautiful alien woman from an alien race (the basis of the medusa myth) who is being run out of town by angry locals. The emphasis is on his gradual temptation and then lassitude after he is seduced.

The feminist pandering in Malazan is slowly getting too obvious even for me.

>Drawn from disparate regiments that included companies from Seven Cities, Falar, and Malaz Island, these ten thousand
thousand soldiers were, by roll, four thousand nine hundred and twelve women, the remaining men; one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven under the recorded age of twenty-five years, seven hundred and twenty-one over the age of thirty-five years; the remaining in between.
I mean, I can stomach the most powerful leaders and sorceres being female, I can also stomach some brutish woman being able to beat a man to pulp.
But half an army consisting of females? That's just unrealistic.

The feminist pandering in Malazan is slowly getting too obvious even for me.

Drawn from disparate regiments that included companies from Seven Cities, Falar, and Malaz Island, these ten thousand soldiers were, by roll, four thousand nine hundred and twelve women, the remaining men; one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven under the recorded age of twenty-five years, seven hundred and twenty-one over the age of thirty-five years; the remaining in between.
I mean, I can stomach the most powerful leaders and sorceres being female, I can also stomach some brutish woman being able to beat a man to pulp.
But half an army consisting of females? That's just unrealistic.

>>9895258
Perdido Street Station, kinda.

>>9895245
My honest opinion is that it was good but I wanted more than what it gave me. It fulfilled my basic expectations, however I had already correctly predicted every plot twist when the Obelisk Gate came out except for some of the minor details, so it was pretty linear and predictable for me. There were some parts of the book that surprised me, but I think that parts of the book were written way too heavy handedly like a YA novel and completely spoiled the ambiguity of the prior two books and I didn't like other parts of the books although other parts of the book were great. Some of the bits are painfully ambiguous where the reader needed more explicit information. Some bits hit a bit too close to home and I think were unnecessary. Some parts needed way more chapters than what got allocated.

For me Obelisk Gate > The Fifth Season > Stone Sky. I liked Obelisk the most because it was so interesting guessing at what would come next. TFS is way more cliched than SS but SS is too heavy handed in places for my tastes. Readers aren't idiots, come on.

Still worth reading though, in my opinion and since we can read everything for free nowadays. No way would I leave this series unfinished and I'm sad that there isn't any more books in this series. Each book seemed far too short.

Her next series looks like lowest common denominator publishing for the money shit (some kind of urban fantasy gimmick about a city, come the hell on) so I'm going to give that one a miss unless someone finds out that it is really good.

>>9895337
Women usually outnumber men (easier to breed multiple women at once) unless you kill your daughters like china and india (how they expect to fuck if they abort female embryos? China and India will be the faggot capital of the world soon. Men need holes to penetrate).
In war you take what you can, if the enemy's plan is to wipe everyone out, man/ woman/ child why leave women to get raped then killed? Carry them with you and let them die killing / injuring someone.

I haven't listened to a single audio book in my whole life. They are not 100% unabridged readings of the book, right? Has anyone ever compared book to audiobook and can say if you miss much by listening to the audiobook?

>>9895344
Your ass better delete your first comment or imma get the hamma for you spamming and taking up posts space.

>>9895380
Historically armies always consisted of virtually only men, due to the simple fact that one man can in theory make dozens of women pregnant, while women can't. Men are more expendable than women and thousands of men dying won't depopulate a country, as long as the country's women keep making children and a new generation of soldiers arises.
Not to mention that men are on average physically more capable and stronger than women, making them more resistant to long marches and wounds.
>>9895391
I did, right after I posted my second post. Refresh the page, lmao.

>>9895380
>>9895399
Mao Zedong implemented equal rights/feminism for women so he could conscript all the females into the army and the labour force.

>>9895383
Any audiobook worth their salt is unabridged, be that how long it may. The longest audiobook I read was 56+ hours. Those usually take a week + to finish, seeing as i am no longer NEET and have shit to do before and after I get home from work.

>>9895400
>>9895399
>Historically armies always consisted of virtually only men, due to the simple fact that one man can in theory make dozens of women pregnant, while women can't
Sounds like that shit geomancer book I read.
>women getting fat and pampered in a breeding factory
>resources wasted on fat whores (literal whores, people pay to breed them)
>whores get uppity because "I'm doing my part"
That book was shit. If I ever find geomancer shill irl imma fuck him up. He recommended the book so eagerly and forgot to mention the main problem. The novel is shit.

>>9895443
>breeding factory
wat

>>9895380
>In war you take what you can,
Armies are slower the larger they get. Even more so if a huge portion of them is of subpar strength and endurance, and more prone to injury due to thin skin and porous bones.

Whelp finished the Age of Swords finally
Quick rundown:
Slow to start
Many emotional scenes in the 2nd half
Some character building for later books
The mystik coming to grip with her own powers finally
The entire book was obviously filled with WOMEN POWER
Not only did the female invent writing, the wheel, carts, bows, some other shit, she even discovered metallurgy.
Amazing is it not

>>9895443
I read that when I was 14 or something but I remember thinking it was pretty decent. Not as good as the books that preceded it though.

>>9895443
Sounds like my fetish

>>9895465
>>9895141
>>9895117
Sullivan really fucked up with this human inventing everything and elves just standing in awe. I hope it's revealed that she was God touched / guided like in the first book. All the posts about this current book makes me want to drop the series.

>>9895506
Paying, then trying to breed a woman everyday, multiple times a time, for an entire month until she preggers?
If anything this book is throwing up signal flares that the sequel will be more feminist than the last. Fuck I hated geomancer.

>>9895520
Yea, I'll keep reading it just to see how the story progresses, but I don't have high hopes

>>9895572
The next book comes out in april, next year

>>9895535
I was thinking more a free public use thing

>>9895367
Cool, thanks. What do you mean by too close to home? Spoilers dont bother me.

>>9895344
They are literally trying to do this to my cuntrys army.
Makes you wish for death.

>>9895305
Couldn't find it unfortunately, sounds like something I really want to read. Was it under the penname Anson MacDonald, Caleb Saunders, John Riverside, Simon York or Lyle Monroe? It would help to narrow it down.
>>9895325
>>9895351
Thanks, anons, will read those.

>>9895400
It didn't last very long though, after a single famine they reverted to a ultra traditional view of women, they went medieval after 1959 and became the norm to sell your daughter and wife into sex slavery.

>>9895601
Being Schaffa is suffering. Being a Schaffafag is even more suffering.

>>9895685
Oh boy, can't wait.

>>9895650
You shouldn't worry about it, the second a woman soldier gets captured and her rape video gets plastered all over the internet they'll back down.

I was looking at different editions of Michael Moorcock's Count Brass on Amazon and found this amazing review.

>>9895587
Naw. They only take people (men) with verified backgrounds of certain traits (eugenics), then that person has to pay (hefty) for a chance to breed these used up cows.

>>9895714
I mean he isn't wrong, has there ever been a author to fall further from grace than Moorcock though? last I heard he was writing fanfic.

>>9895714
That's why you gotta love Sanderson.
Oath breaker everywhere November 2017, look out for it

NEWEST BREAD
>>9895758
>>9895758
>>9895758

>>9895708
;_;

>>9895736
Every fantasy author seems to be fanfic authors.

>>9892956
Neuromancer, from the ones you posted; I would recommend The Library at Mount Char.